When you feel that you might be having a "nervous breakdown," it time to talk to your general practitioner or a psychiatrist. You might very likely be in need of medication to help you along on a temporary basis. That medication might very well stop you from having a major breakdown.

During December of 1979, just before Christmas, my mother died and I asked some friends the same question. They give me the wrong answer and I had a major breakdown. Had I seen of physician and gotten some help, it might have stopped me from going to a psychiatric hospital soon after my mother's passing.